


Befowled

by Lyrstzha



Series: Chickenification [3]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, chickenification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-27
Updated: 2009-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaylee would really rather not clean up dinner after it's been through a chicken's gizzard, but the alternative isn't wise to speak on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Befowled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brunettepet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brunettepet/gifts).



"Does it gotta be my turn again, Cap'n?" Kaylee wheedled with soulful eyes, rag in one hand and a trepidatious expression on her face as she looked at the filthy table in front of her. "Cause I was gonna tinker a space on the new mule, maybe reset the ignition timin' just a hair."

"No excuses, little Kaylee," Mal told her sternly. "It's your turn, fair an' square."

"But the timin' got knocked all cattywumpus from when you drove off that cliff on Paquin, an'—"

"How many times I got to tell you, it wasn't no cliff!" Mal insisted hotly. "It was just a dip, is all."

"Dips usually don't leave a body time to scream after drivin' off 'em, Sir. Not as a rule," Zoe put in blandly, eating from the plate in her lap tidily, but keeping well back from the vile mess on the table.

Mal scowled at her. "An' I never screamed, neither. That there is a vicious, mutinous lie."

Zoe just snorted into her food, but beside her Wash grinned brightly and put in, "No one doubts that it was a manly yell of triumph, Mal. A very shrill, piercing, high-pitched manly yell of triumph."

"At least, no one who wasn't there to hear differently," Book added sagely from his own seat, which was also pushed back to arm's-length from the table. "Which surely includes everyone on the _other_ side of Paquin."

"I thought my perfume bottles might shatter, even from a mile away," Inara laughed. "I had no idea you possessed such vocal range. You should consider operatic training."

"That's _it_," Mal growled. "All four a'you had enough dinner, an' you're just in Kaylee's way. Out!"

But they laughed as they went, and Wash paused just outside the doorway to add, "If a captain falls off a cliff and there's no one there to hear him, does his scream still wake up little children on Sihnon?"

"Out!" Mal barked at him again. He turned back to Kaylee, shaking his head. "I got enough mutiny on my hands as it is. You clean up this table, you hear me?"

"I will, I will." Kaylee eyed the table. "Just, ain't there some way to keep this from happenin' every time Jayne comes to eat with us? Cause that'd be shiny. Ain't no fun cleanin' up dinner after it's been through a chicken's gizzard."

Mal raised an eyebrow. "Was you said he was cuter like this, I recall rightly."

"Well, he _is_. What with his little fluffy feathers an' all," Kaylee defended. "But he makes a powerful mess, an' the _smell_..."

Mal shrugged. "That part ain't his fault. Chickens don't have them, whaddya call 'em...," he pointed at Simon, who was nibbling absently at a hunk of flatbread and quietly flipping through the pages of a journal he was keeping of River's treatments.

"Sphincters," Simon filled in easily on cue, without even looking up.

"Right," Mal agreed. "Them. Ain't got one, so he can't help leavin' his muck wherever he eats."

Kaylee sighed, but then brightened. "Could we maybe put bitty little diapers on him or some such? I bet that—"

She cut off as Mal and Simon, who dropped his journal with a thump, both raised shushing hands hurriedly.

"Quiet down!" Mal hissed. "Don't wanna speak on notions like that right out loud."

"Especially not in small, easy to follow words," Simon added in a hushed whisper.

"What?" Kaylee asked, blinking at them.

"Little pitchers have big ears," came River's singsong voice from the corner. "And they hold oceans of vinegar."

An ominous-sounding clucking echoed through the room, seemingly issuing from nowhere in particular.

"Well." Mal looked cautiously around himself. "That ain't creepifyin' or nothin'." He edged toward the door, not turning his back on the room. He held out a hand, and from beside his chair Simon snatched up a large, butterfly-style net, clearly cobbled together from wooden crate slats and strips of gunny sack, and threw it over for Mal to catch.

"River, we really must be getting back to the infirmary," Simon said. "I want to check your...um...your adrenaline levels. Come along." He snagged River with an arm around her shoulders and urged her toward the door, Mal covering their retreat with the net at the ready.

"Don't rightly think Jayne'll come after _you_," Mal reassured Kaylee as he reached the door, "Anyone else, maybe, but not you. But just in case." He tossed her the net. "Watch your back, an' holler if you need. Or if the net don't hold him." And with that, he vanished speedily around the corner.

Kaylee looked around the room, then back at the table. "You sure about them diapers?" she asked the empty room. "Cause I'd be real grateful."

A low, angry-sounding squawk came from someplace.

"Even if I let you have one'a your grenades the Cap'n says you can't play with now you ain't got hands?"

The squawk trailed off into a thoughtful cluck and then into a considering silence.

Kaylee beamed. "See?" she murmured to herself. "Is _so_ a way to make an omelet without breakin' any eggs. Just gotta know the right way to ask, is all." She hummed cheerfully as she got a table knife out and started scraping industriously at the droppings on the dining table.


End file.
